ENTRY 07 - 25/01/2024
my honest reaction to The girl next door (2004)
!SPOILERS AHEAD (obviously)!
so, this sunday instead of studying chemistry, i decided to spend the day being lazy and watching this movie. again, i only watched it cus paul dano has a role, and again, he only got like 10 minutes of screentime............
i expected this movie to only be about sex and be unserious and just have a lot of joke lines, but it was actually a bit of a deep movie. in some scenes, the movie actually made me connect emotionally to the characters, especially in that scene where matthew was giving his speech about moral fiber. i think this is one of those movies that starts with a really silly plot and you dont pay much attention at first, and then there's randomly a very emotional part that makes you rethink your whole life in 5 minutes. another scene i loved is the scenes more towards the ending where it shows matthew, eli and klitz having fun at prom and then going on into their separate lives. it was a bit sad to see the tripod get separated, but the scenes were so happy that i didnt get upset or anything. the scenes were lively and made me happy just seeing their friendship bloom into something more serious as they graduate from high school.
i really loved the characters, matthew is just relatable, eli is funny and always made me laugh when he was on scene, and despite the fact that klitz didnt get much screen time, he's still my favorite, because hes paul dano and because hes the smart one of the group. i also liked kelly, even tho he was the main antagonist, he was smart, but his whole strategy relied on disguises, which gave his character a lot of emotional density, in my opinion. i pity danielle a lot, i just feel like she didnt deserve anything that happened to her in this movie. i also thought the jokes with the sam yang kid were a bit funny, because they made basically no sense and didnt contribute to the plot in any way. if matthew was raising money for college or something instead of a random kid then we could have gotten more klitz screentime, and more klitz screentime = happy me.
The ending was amazing tho, i really thought everything would turn out wrong for matthew until the last second. that suspense feeling i got was amazing, and it was worth it to endure it just to see the ending. im really happy that everything turned out great for everyone (except kelly, i guess, but he kinda deserved it).
all in all, i loved this movie, even thought it isnt one of my favorites. its certainly a great, light one to watch, since it has a clear plot line and not many heavy subjects.
Thank you for reading!
